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Published: March 13th 2010
Crowding onto the bus to Sha Ping
Baskets, old ladies, and not enough seatsToday a Dutch friend and I got a bus from Dali to nearby village Sha Ping, to go to the village market. The market ws great - heaving with local Bai women in their traditional clothes.
Yunnan - the province I am currently in is nearly twice the size of the UK and is home to a large number of 'minority' Chinese people. The Bai are one of the largest groups and they live in an enviable position between the permanently snow-capped Cangshan Mountain and the enourmous clear Erhai Lake. The weather along the lakes shores is pretty good and the land is fertile, so farming is big business for the Bai people. They work hard in the fields and often you can seen hundreds of women all working in lines, growing rice, vegetables, wheat and grains to bring to the Monday market in Sha Ping.
Most people crowd to the market with large wicker baskets with straps placed around the forehead, some arrive by local bus and a large number come in very large, noisy converted tractors. The sellers were curious to meet us, and keen to sell us anything they could. From books of Mao slogans to
Sha Ping Monday market
A different way of getting to market the skull of an ox, I am not sure what they thought I may want to do with it but they were certain I would be interested in buying it!
After the market we decided to cross some of the fields and join the women working in them. One woman called us over and with lots of "Nihao's" and "XieXie's" she showed us how to use a tool she had to take the growing tips out of onion plants. There were about ten women working their way down the one patch in the sunshine, all chatting together. It seemed like a nice job but after five minutes I realised what backbreaking work it really was. We were pretty useless at removing the growing tips so after being thoroughly laughed at by the locals and thanking them for having us we set off, deciding to walk the first few km back towards Dali.
Walking was a great decision, we passed through tiny villages in while only locals ever stop. We were potentially the first westerners to have walked through one tiny village, and as we entered the village square everyone stopped and stared, before coming over to talk to
us (although we couldn't understand and say anything other than my one Mandarin sentence 'I am British') and to stare some more. Eventually things settled down and we had some lunch, before taking some pictures with a group of elderly men playing marjong in the sunshine. From here we walked back to the main road before hitchhiking back to Dali. A long and interesting day, now to nurse the sunburn I didn't realise I was getting in the field!
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